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Has VR gone too far? The mind-boggling virtual reality pinball machine is here
Fri, 18th Aug 2017
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Rusty Oak announced that their debut title Hurl VR, a Pinball-like puzzle game, is coming to Steam for HTC Vive.

The developers say that Hurl VR is a ball throwing simulator in virtual reality with a touch of a tactical puzzler, requiring skill, logical thinking and precise timing.

Petras Malinauskas, Rusty Oak co-founder says, “We like to call Hurl VR the pinball machine of the 21st century.

“We took the simple gameplay mechanics of pinball, added a level of tactics and skill that requires a level of physicality and wrapped it in a mysterious virtual reality world with futuristic music and visuals.

Hurl VR begins as a simple ball throwing simulation and quickly grows into a tactical puzzle game by putting the player's technique and reaction to the test as they progress through the levels.

Players advance in the game by hitting multiple platforms with a ball in correct patterns to unlock and reach the gateway platform.

Each of the platforms has its own unique properties such as boosting the ball speed or teleporting the ball to a new platform.

The designers say that the game has 30 levels with new types of platforms and challenges added every few levels, utilising the 360-degree environment.

A Rust Oak spokesperson says, “The unique angle of Hurl VR lies in embracing the physical aspects of individual players, which are generally neglected in modern game development.

“A shorter player might find it extremely easy to complete a certain level that requires a low and tactical throw, whereas a tall player might find it more challenging to tackle the same level.”

“These personal human traits make each player's game experience entirely unique and at times even comical, thus Hurl VR stands out not only as an interactive puzzler but as a fun party game as well.” Rusty Oak is a game development studio that started out as a side project at a Lithuanian software development company Telesoftas.

This sounds like a very interesting take on the classic pinball franchise, I do find it a bit strange that the platform is making the jump to VR.

Yet, by the looks of the trailer and the screenshots, this could turn out to be more like Portal than pinball.

As exciting as that sounds a portal VR game does have the potential to be nauseating.

The game is set to release early next month.

You can watch the trailer here: